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The initial settings for operating the system at power up are stored on
the BIOS chip. These settings are backed up by a small battery. This
battery is usually round and approximately the size of a quarter. The
BIOS contains settings for the size and location of the boot device, the
I/O specifications for peripherals connected to the Peripheral Component
Interface (PCI) bus, and other settings that must be maintained when
the computer is powered down.
The CPU is the brain of the computer. It does all the processing for all
the programs in the system. The CPU also acts as a traffic cop by
relaying information to and between individual system components.
All functions of the motherboard are controlled by a chipset. The chipset determines
resource allocation on the motherboard. The BIOS chip is a part of the chipset. Many
modern motherboards contain network, sound card, and video chips intended to replace plug
in PCI devices. These are all considered a part of the chipset.
System Buses
A motherboard has the following buses connected to it:
The power bus
The front side bus
The back side bus
The Peripheral Component Interface (PCI) bus
The Universal Serial Bus (USB)
Firewire bus
The USB
Many external peripherals are connected to the system via the USB. The list of these items include printers,
scanners, cameras, network cards, mp3 players, external hard disk drives, and many more items. A lot of
people prefer USB devices because they are easier to connect to the computer, they can be "hot-swapped," and
you don't have to have separate power supplies for each external device.
There are two USB standards: USB 1.0 and 2.0. USB 1.0 is not used on newer computers because USB 2.0 is
backwards compatible.
Firewire
Firewire is a special bus designed to operate very efficiently with cameras and other peripherals that require an
extremely high speed, wired interface. USB 2.0 is minimally faster than USB 2.0 (firewire operates at
400Mbps and USB 2.0 is 480Mbps). There is a newer firewire standard that allows for component operation
at 800Mbps.
This is the CPU socket or the location where the CPU is connected to the motherboard.
The CPU frequently has a fan mounted on top of it when installed, so this socket may be
difficult to recognize if the CPU is already installed.
These are PCI Express slots. This is a newer version of the PCI standard that allows for
insertion of peripheral boards that communicate at extremely high data rates.
The grey connector in this picture is where an ATX power supply connects to the
motherboard. The black connector is for a floppy disk drive.
These are IDE connectors. IDE connectors are mainly used for connecting hard disk drives
to the system. Each IDE connector can accommodate up to two IDE drives. Sometimes
CD-ROM and DVD drives are IDE devices.
These are Serial ATA (SATA) connectors. SATA devices are beginning to replace IDE
devices in systems.
These are USB 2.0 connectors.
These are firewire connectors.
Peripheral Connectors
Many newer motherboards have multiple connectors attached to their side for connecting peripheral or
input/output devices. Examples of these ports are shown below:
Rear
PS/2 Parallel Port RJ-45 RJ-45
Line In left/right
Mouse Ethernet Ethernet
speaker
PS/2 Serial S/PDI
Firewire
Keyboard Port F Out USB USB Microphone S/PDIF Out
Summary
A motherboard is a fairly complex device, but is easily understandable if you break it down into component
pieces. Everything in a computer must connect through or to the motherboard. All of these connections are
made via a series of wire traces referred to as buses.